


space oddity (ain't got nothing on him)

by jediseagull



Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Dubious Science, Friendship/Love, M/M, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 13:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3730885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jediseagull/pseuds/jediseagull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Fraser acts like he's from a different planet. Which makes sense, because he is. </p><p>Or, the adventures of Fraser and Ray on the space cruiser <i>Chicago</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	space oddity (ain't got nothing on him)

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to my wonderful beta iwilltrytobereasonable, who provided ass-kicking and encouragement when I was struggling to turn three disconnected scenes into a story.
> 
> I am neither an engineer nor an astronaut, and though I've tried to do my research, any questionable bits of mechanics or science are entirely my own fault.
> 
> I also have a [Tumblr](http://jedi-seagull.tumblr.com/)! Come say hi :D

The Mountie’s due back today, and Ray can’t help the jitters of anticipation. A real live Canadian, and that alone is weirder than even the wildest rumors have promised - if you can believe what the rest of the 2-7’s selling. Ray’s not sure he can. He grew up on the lower decks of the _Chicago_ , never been higher than level 5 until he started dating Stella. He should have known then, that first time she brought him up to the double-digits. It was like they were in a whole different world, sparkling and golden and astonishingly clean, the universe at their feet. Grimy little Ray Kowalski from factory block 1-3 didn’t fit in there, and he never would.

He can’t even imagine what it’s like for the Mountie, coming from _an actual different world_.

And sure, that world’s Nouveau Canada, iced over half the year and still a barren hellscape the other six months, but it’s not a cruiser in the Greater American ring, and that’s something. Nobody from his neighborhood’s ever been rich enough to afford a planetside vacation, and though the men and women in this block do good, honest work, it’s still level 2. They’re not exactly making the big bucks down here either.

So he can’t help himself, okay? The Mountie comes in - and alright, there’s the wolf, he was warned about the wolf and he’s _not panicking_ , he’s cool, he’s got this, he wraps his arms around those broad shoulders and inhales and -

Gets a whiff of ash, which is odd, but underneath that there’s something clear, something cold, and it’s deck 11 all over again except he’s pretty sure that what he’s smelling is _air_.

That’s why he hangs onto the Mountie - Fraser, Fraser, gotta get used to calling him by name - a little longer than is strictly necessary, chasing another breath of that sweet unprocessed oxygen.

Yeah. That’s why.

* * *

Apparently public transporters aren’t a thing on Canada. That’s the only reason Ray can come up with as to why Fraser insists on walking everywhere. They keep telling him that guy has lived on the Chicago for going on two years, but he looks at the T station like it’s gonna bite. Pretty rich coming from a man with a pet wolf, in Ray’s opinion. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets and casts a last glance back at the crush of people fighting to get off and on the pods. “You got something against transporters?”

“Diefenbaker doesn’t care for them,” Fraser says, and taps his nose. “He may be deaf, but his sense of smell is quite acute, and he has strong opinions about hygiene. Rather hypocritical of him, if you ask me, but he is a wild animal.”

“Right,” Ray says slowly. As if on cue, the wolf starts nosing through a pile of garbage, whining and pawing. It looks up, and there’s red smeared across its muzzle.

The blood is from a button-down shirt, ripped across the ribcage right where the worst of the staining is. It’s a long, dragging cut rather than a stabbing one, so it probably wasn’t an immediately fatal wound, but the quantity of blood suggests they need to find the victim sooner rather than later. Fraser’s apparently reached the same conclusion, because he grabs the shirt and tilts Diefenbaker’s face towards him and says, intent, “ _Find him_.”

The wolf takes off at a run, Fraser right behind it. Ray curses, but he’s pulling out his comm to call back to the 2-7 even as he sprints after them. He’s done more running in the last week than in his first six months as a beat cop, and his legs are protesting already. Thanks to the morning commute the hallways are more or less empty, and they tear through them like the oddest game of tag ever played, wolf and Mountie and detective all in a line.

Only, Fraser may have the stamina of a distance runner, but he doesn’t have the gear. Those shiny leather boots don’t get nearly as much traction as Ray’s treaded head-kickers do, and Fraser skids out around the next corner, goes down hard on one knee with a hand out for balance. Ray doesn’t even slow down as he passes, grabbing Fraser’s bicep and yanking the other man to his feet. Diefenbaker has the advantage of four legs, and the wolf isn’t waiting for anyone. “Come on, come on,” Ray pants.

“Thank you kindly,” Fraser huffs back, settling back into that easy lope. They’re in step now, keeping that plumed tail in sight until the wolf turns another corner and starts barking his head off at a locked door. Ray has access to most everywhere on the ship thanks to his badge, but some of the mechanical areas are off-limits for safety reasons, and this is apparently one of them.

Another unfortunate side-effect of the higher security is the door itself. It’s the same aluminum alloy that makes up most of the rest of the _Chicago_ ’s interior, but it’s been reinforced with bands of carbon fiber. They can break it down, probably, but it’ll take them more time than they have and and one bad hit could lead to fractured collarbones or ankles. He’s about to suggest they look for an alternate entrance, or maybe swipe someone’s passcard, when Fraser takes three steps back for a running start and slams his shoulder into the door.

Something cracks. Not Fraser. He shakes out his arms, backs up again, and this time when he throws himself into the door it groans. One more solid effort and it gives fully, bowing in from its frame so that Fraser can kick it out of the way.

Jesus. The guy is built, no question, but Ray’s no weakling and he still finds that impressive. He wants to ask Fraser if Canadians feed their kids steroids in their cereal, but then they’re through the door and Diefenbaker’s got the scent back and they’re running again. Whatever. He’s not gonna question a good thing.

The service corridor is dimly lit. They have to duck under the endless twisting pipes overhead, chins tucked down as they jog. Ray is so busy trying to keep his breathing going, in through the nose and out through the mouth, that he doesn’t realize Fraser has stopped until he nearly trips right over him, crouched by -

He knows, just from Fraser’s stricken expression, that they’re too late. The kid was too skinny for that shirt, he thinks, and hates how easy it is to compartmentalize even as he’s doing it. Fifteen, maybe sixteen years old. There’s a black tank lying across his ribs, and underneath it the sideswipe that went through the shirt. He must have been using the tank to slow the bleeding. That explained why there hadn’t been a visible trail to follow.

“Ray.” With a tenderness that makes Ray want to hit something, Fraser cups the boy’s skull and angles it forward. “Look.”

“Fuck.” He has to turn away or he’s gonna upchuck all over their crime scene.

This wasn’t some kind of mugging-gone-wrong. Someone had followed this kid here, waited until he was as good as unconscious with blood loss, and caved the side of his head in with a bat. He hadn’t even had a chance to stand up.

“I’m calling it in,” he says. His voice sounds wrecked even to his own ears. “We should stay here to give our statements.”

“We should go,” Fraser corrects. “His temperature indicates that he died mere minutes ago, and as we did not pass his attacker on the way in…”

Ray nods grimly. “Then the only way left for the bastard to go is forward.” He lets Welsh know why they won’t be at the scene, and Fraser instructs Diefenbaker to stay with the body in case anyone else comes along investigating the broken-down door and disturbs evidence.

They keep going, following the tunnel deeper and deeper into the bowels of the ship. Fraser seems tireless, but Ray’s breathing hard, now, and he’s embarrassingly grateful when Fraser pulls to a stop - until he sees why. The tunnel is split, two separate paths and no sign of where their target’s gone. It’s been a straight shot so far, easy enough to stay on the trail even without Diefenbaker’s help, but Ray’s kind of regretting he let Fraser leave the wolf behind. If, after everything, they have to go back empty-handed….

Fraser hmms.

“What?”

Fraser is peering up at the ceiling - or no, Ray realizes. At one of the pipes. It’s leaking, a quiet drip-drip that Ray hadn’t even heard until now. Fraser sticks out a finger, catching a droplet and inspecting it closely. Then he sticks out his tongue and _Jesus Christ, licks it_.  

“ _What the fuck_ ,” Ray says loudly. Because, okay, when Huey said the Mountie was, and he’s quoting here, ‘kind of strange’, he didn’t realize that what his fellow detective _meant_ was‘crazy’.

But Fraser doesn’t seem to miss a beat. He raps on the pipe with his knuckles, letting it ring dully. “It’s coolant, Ray.” He crosses to an identical pipe a few feet away. “And this, I suspect, is water.” He knocks it with a loose fist, and smiles at the noise. “Water is less dense than the coolant - ethylene glycol, in this case - and so results in a higher pitch when the pipe is vibrated.”

It’s been an exhausting, awful day. Ray does not have time for some bizarro Canadian science lesson. “Get to the point, Fraser.”

“Ah. Well, you see, the pipe with the coolant runs down the left-hand corridor, indicating that it leads to mechanical rooms, or possibly the ship’s core, both of which are bound to have increased security. While the water runs down the right-hand corridor, meaning -”

“People,” Ray interrupts, and Fraser nods. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”

After all that, it winds up being almost stupidly easy. Andy Kirkpatrick wanted to run with the big boys, and they told him he had to prove he could handle it first. He’d picked out Erik Sayyif as an easy target, took a chunk out of him on the way to school, and then followed him down to the service tunnels where Erik’s dad worked the night shift to finish him off. He was bragging about it to his friends when Ray and Fraser caught up to him.

What a goddamn joke. Welsh has all but ordered them to go home and sleep it off, but Ray’s got a mission and an address that he wheedled out of Frannie.

“Mrs. Sayyif,” he starts, and swallows hard against the lump that rises in his throat when he sees the fresh tear tracks on her face. “I’m Detective Vecchio. Me and my partner, we were the ones who found your son...but I wanted you to know, from me, that we got the guy. And if I have anything to say about it, he’s - he’s going away for the rest of his life.”

She cries all over his shirtfront. Ray might let a tear or two of his own disappear into her hair, not that he’s admitting to anything, and when he finally pulls away she clasps his hand one more time and whispers her thanks.

When he gets back, Fraser’s waiting in front of his room. Ray swipes hurriedly at his face. “Whaddya want?”

“I thought - I didn’t…” Fraser bites his lip. They’ve only had a few cases together, but Ray already knows that Fraser’s a soft touch, especially when it comes to kids. And they’re both thinking it: _if I’d run just a little bit faster…._

“Yeah,” Ray says with a sigh. “Come on in, we’ll get pizza or something. You can crash on the couch if it gets too late.”  

He gets it. Neither of them should be alone right now. If you let it, guilt can be a career-killer, and tomorrow Ray knows they’ll be back at work in the 2-7 like today never happened, ready to keep their little corner of the _Chicago_ safe.

Tomorrow.

* * *

Six months into the Vecchio assignment, Ray’s settled into his new routine. He comes into the 2-7 every morning and makes calls and does paperwork until noon, when he grabs lunch for two from one of the little restaurants that are dotted throughout the bigger professional blocks. As long as it’s not too busy, he has the food steaming away on his desk when Fraser walks through the station doors. They talk over their caseload as they’re eating, and spend the afternoon chasing down leads - or, thanks to Fraser’s uncanny knack for finding trouble, getting into it with the perps themselves.

Somehow, they always manage to come out of it okay. Yesterday’s brawl had been a rough one, five guys to their two, but between Ray’s years of experience in the ring and Fraser’s beautifully brutal right hook, they more than held their own. And, okay, having Dief on their side didn’t hurt either.

Of course, he’s feeling every hit today. Every time he shifts his weight in his uncomfortable desk chair he has to bite back on a wince, and he caved and paid old Mrs. Borowicz ten bucks extra to deliver a huge bag of pierogies to the precinct rather than get up and walk himself. All he wants now is for Fraser to show up so that he can gorge himself on comfort food and maybe complain a little bit. _Fraser_ ’s joints never seem to ache the morning after a fight.

His comm beeps. Speak of the devil. Maybe he’s running late; Thatcher’s been in a real beast of a mood lately and just looking for an excuse to assign extra sentry duty. “Hey Frase, what’s up?”

“Ah, Ray,” Fraser says, and something in the tone of his voice sounds strange. “I’m afraid I won’t be joining you today, I’m feeling a bit unwell and Inspector Thatcher has kindly given me the day off.”

“Unwell? Unwell how?” Ray demands. He’s already standing, slinging on his jacket. Fraser’s never called in sick a single day since Ray’s met him, which means that this has gotta be serious.   
  
“It seems likely that it was a result of yesterday’s altercation. I’m running an elevated temperature, but there’s no need to worry. Turnbull has very generously offered to help, and I’m given to understand that he passed his field medic course with flying colors.”

Ray can’t help but feel a little hurt. Turnbull? Fraser asked _Turnbull_ for help over his own partner?

“I’m coming by,” he says, and hangs up before Fraser can tell him not to.

Turnbull. Honestly.

He swings by Mrs. Borowicz’s to pick up some of her famous chicken soup on the way there, and doesn’t even feel bad about shouldering past Turnbull when the younger Mountie opens the door of the consulate. “Hey, Fraser, brought you a pick-me-up!”

“...Ray?”   
  
Ray nearly drops the container of soup. Fraser looks _awful_. He’s lying supine in his white undershirt and boxers, head propped up on a pillow. His normally-pale skin is flushed pink from his face down to his bare limbs, and there’s a saline drip stuck in his forearm. “You said it was just a fever!” Ray says accusingly, and stashes the soup on the desk so that he can put a hand to Fraser’s forehead.

“I do have a fever,” Fraser responds.

“I can tell. Jeez, you’re burning up. You taken anything for it yet?” Fraser shakes his head. “Hang on, I told Mrs. Borowicz you weren’t feeling too good and I think she slipped some meds into the bag.” He goes back to the desk and starts digging around - and yup, there they are. Little old ladies loveFraser, and Borowicz is no exception. She’d probably spend all day fussing over him if she could.

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Ray,” Fraser says stiffly from behind him.

Ray waves an indignant finger in his face. “Nope, not buying it. You’re sick enough to need an IV, you don’t just get to hang around and hope you get better.” He pauses as a thought strikes him. “Do I gotta take you to the emergency room?”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Fraser insists, pushing himself a little further up on the pillow. “The fever isn’t an issue.”

“No?” Ray snaps. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks pretty serious.” Clearly Turnbull agrees with him. There’s half an operating room’s worth of supplies spilled out across the desk, from coagulants and antibiotics to what looks, weirdly enough, like a tiny socket wrench.

Fraser tries to rub his eyebrow and winces as the motion tugs at the needle in his arm. “Well, it is, but the real problem is my knee.”

Ray isn’t going to punch his sick partner, he _isn’t_. He takes a few deep breaths. “Your knee.” It comes out flat, despite his best efforts.   
  
Fraser looked uncomfortable. “Well, yes. I believe it was jostled yesterday, though it may have also shifted overnight. In any case, Ray, thank you for coming to check up on me, but I really will be fine. Constable Turnbull is quite competent at the necessary procedures, and I’m sure they’re expecting you back at the precinct.”

There’s really nothing he can do in the face of such an obvious dismissal. “Fine,” he grits out. “Well, maybe you can have Constable Turnbull let me know when you’re feeling better.” He stalks out the door and back to the 2-7, and nearly takes Frannie’s head off when she laughs at him for sulking.

* * *

He just - he thought they were finally clicking, being a duet rather than two cops who just happened to be going after the same criminals. It sucks, and Ray knows he’s being kind of an asshole about it, but he can’t - he can’t not be, not when every time Fraser opens his mouth he hears _I don’t need you_.

They’re still working cases together, Fraser back on his feet just as quickly as promised, but it’s awkward between them still. There’s just not enough time to clear the air, not when they’re closing in on Stewart Price, conman and general lowlife, and Frannie comms him with a tip that Price is planning on jumping ship via a faulty airlock in 3-2. For a second, as they run up to the heavy doors, Ray thinks they’ve beaten Price there - but no, motion in the corner and _dammit_ , that’s Price in the evac-pod, fingers flying over startup sequences.

Ray slaps desperately at the internal controls, but Price must have done something to the panel, because it’s not responding. The manual shutdown is in the far corner of the pod bay. If they step into the bay and Price opens the outer doors, they’ll be dead in thirty seconds. Maybe less.

“We gotta try to bust the pod from here,” he shouts, turning to Fraser - _and Fraser isn’t there_. The airlock hatch is still swinging on its hinges.

Every cell in Ray’s body _screams_ at the thought of being in the pod bay when those outer doors open - but Fraser, _Fraser_.

He’s taken two strides towards the lock when he hears the emergency klaxon start to sound: _warning, manual shutdown engaged_ , and that impassive voice is the sweetest thing he’s heard all day. Fraser emerges mere moments later, Price in tow, and he smiles at Ray like he’s expecting congratulations.

Later he’s going to regret this, but right now? Right now, Ray is fucking pissed.

“You do not run into an airlock without a suit!” he bellows, jabbing a finger in Fraser’s face.

“The lock hadn’t been correctly sealed, Ray,” Fraser points out mildly. “If Mr. Price had opened the outer doors, someone might have gotten hurt, and he almost certainly would have made off with Mrs. Valdez’s life savings.”

“I don’t give two shits about Mrs. Valdez,” Ray snarls, and Fraser starts in with the disappointed “Ray!” but no, that’s it, he’s had it up to here with this fucking martyr act. “You do not - _you do not_ run into an airlock without a suit! He nearly spaced you, Fraser!”

Fraser’s getting upset now, and Ray is vindictively pleased by the look of frustration that’s flickering across his partner’s face. “Ray, if only you’d listen I think you’d see that I was simply trying to do the right thing.”

“Do the right thing? _Do the_ – okay, here’s an idea! You could’ve waited, and let me shoot the evac-pod! Or how’s this for a plan? Maybe you could stop with the invincible fucking Mountie-bot act and _treat me like your goddamn partner_.” He spits the words out and Fraser reels backwards like Ray took a swing. His expression looks eerily similar to the one he makes when he’s getting chewed out by Thatcher, and that, more than anything else, stops Ray in his tracks.

All the rage and terror disappears, leaving him with weak knees and the sinking feeling that he’s gone and stuck his foot in it again. Fraser looks pale under the fluorescents, tragic and noble and – let’s face it – a hero who just caught the bad guy and saved the day, only to get screamed at in the corridor like a misbehaving child.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Fraser says quietly, and then he turns on his heel and disappears down the hall. Dief gives one more low growl at Price then trots after him, flipping his tail dismissively at Ray as he passes.

And, okay. Ray can take the hint. He drops Price off at the containment units, makes sure Mrs. Valdez’s money is logged into the evidence records and returned to her safe, and then sets off in search of Fraser.

Who isn’t in the Canadian diplomat’s quarters, or in the Chinese restaurant he likes, or in any of the other dozen-odd places Ray looks for him. He’s about to call it a night when he hears the click of claws on metal. Dief is just _radiating_ disdain, but at least the wolf’s taken pity on his sad attempts at tracking. It’s clear that he wants Ray to follow him.

Ray trails the wolf for a good half an hour, across service bridges and down an elevator that can’t possibly be meant for anything other than freight, and has to flash his badge three different times when various uniformed workers look like they might try to bar his way.

Somehow, it doesn’t surprise him that they’d let Fraser through.

He’s shit at apologies, but he’s trying to come up with a halfway-decent one before they get to wherever Dief is taking him, and it sounds something like, _Fraser, I’m sorry I went off on you like that. Next time I’ll_ \- but no, the next time Fraser does something dumb and unnecessarily risky in the name of Doing the Right Thing, Ray’s still going to be furious, and when he’s furious he can’t help what comes out of his mouth.

He’s working back around to righteous indignation when Dief stops in front of a closed door and sits, whining. It’s old school, real mechanical lock and everything, and judging by the designation on the door it’s low-priority storage, so it probably hasn’t been touched since they first launched the _Chicago_. Ray’s not the greatest with computers, but his old man always liked to tinker, and he’s got the little screwdriver he uses on his comms to the lock mechanism before he even thinks about it.

The lock pops open, and Ray walks into the room.

It’s almost completely dark. Fraser’s standing in front of a small wall light, facing away, but Ray sees his shoulders tense before the door creaks closed again.

“Frase,” he starts. But what can he say? He’s sorry, yeah, but he’s never gonna stop being scared for Fraser, angry at whoever’s putting his partner in danger, even if it’s Fraser himself. He makes himself take one step forward, then another. Words are no good. He’ll start with an apologetic shoulder bump and take it from there.

He’s five steps away when he realizes that no, Fraser’s not standing in front of a lightbulb after all. It’s a _porthole_.

Hundreds of thousands of miles away, Nouveau Canada gleams like the moon. Ray can’t quite bear to look at Fraser’s face, can’t watch his partner ache with longing for his home even if Fraser’s misery is so thick in the air he can smell it. Or maybe that’s just Fraser, who runs around in five different layers of wool and cotton despite the fact that the _Chicago_ ’s climate systems only break down every third Sunday. Somehow he never smells of anything other than the cedar cabinet where he keeps his uniform and that lingering hint of cold, clean air, as though if by willpower alone he can carry a reminder of his planet with him wherever he goes. However he does it, it doesn’t seem to be helping his homesickness any.

Ray falls back on his original plan, sidling up next to Fraser and rocking towards him to nudge gently at his shoulder. Fraser doesn’t nudge back, but after a long minute he says, “You know, my father always told me that a man was foolish to reject the gifts he was offered.”

“Uh,” Ray says. “Okay?”

Fraser sighs. “I suppose I should have realized that most of the people who grow up shipside see no need for the - ah, enhancements that are a necessity to living in more extreme climates. Though it’s a misconception that our mechanical parts have any effect on our thoughts and behaviors, it’s only natural that you would be uncomfortable with the idea.”

He’s using his Professional Dictionary voice, and Ray is more lost than usual. “English, Frase?”

“You’ve been upset since you came to visit the consulate the day I needed surgery. I - I assumed you felt that it was a liability, working with a cyborg.”

Ray gets this feeling, sometimes, when the evidence just clicks into place in his head, boom boom boom, a knockout punch that leads straight to putting dirtbags away. Fraser says _cyborg_ , and Ray’s brain goes _aha_!

Fraser notices Ray’s little revelation, of course, scans his face and puts those investigating skills to good use. “You didn’t know.” His voice is odd.

“No. Jeez, so all those times you went sliding down elevator shafts and leaping from balconies….?”

“Much of my skeleton is reinforced for high-impact collisions and falls, yes. Like most people, I also have the standard circulation heat-pumps in my extremities, though they’re dependent on ambient temperature and aren’t operating now. I’ll probably have to get them replaced the next time I’m on leave, since Turnbull’s repair was only ever intended to be a temporary measure.” His tone indicates that these facts are no more remarkable than, for instance, the standard weight of a bull caribou (three hundred and seventy-five pounds, not that Ray ever asked).

“And the licking?”

Fraser blinks. “The tongue is a very refined sensory organ, Ray.” Of course it is, Ray thinks. Figures that the weirdest thing about the guy isn’t because he’s half-metal, it’s because he’s _Fraser_.

But - “Yeah, okay,” Ray mutters, and knuckles his eyes. It’s been a long day, first chasing after Price, then chasing after Fraser. He could keep agonizing over what to say, or he could accept that he’d fucked up, big time. “Look, I’m sorry I called you a robot or whatever. I didn’t know you were - and I didn’t mean it like that anyways. You know me, my mouth goes and my brain can’t always keep up. I just - I thought you didn’t trust me to be your partner. ”

“I know.” Fraser takes a deep breath, then bumps his shoulder against Ray’s so softly he could have imagined it. “I’m sorry as well. You are both my partner and my friend, and I didn’t treat you as such.”

Which Ray takes to mean: _sorry I thought you were a bigoted asshole and also went into that airlock without waiting for you to back me up_ , only in Canadian.

“No problem,” Ray says, and means it. “Hey, got any snacks in that belt of yours? View’s great, but I’m starving.”

* * *

Everything’s easier after that. Not _easy_ , because it’s Fraser and Ray and if they don’t handle the tough cases, who will? But easier, without all the secrets between them taking up space. Their solve rate ticks high enough that Welsh has been grumbling about nominating him for a merit award. Even better, they leave the 2-7 each day shoulder to shoulder, in step and in sync with each other like they’re a single unit. Partners.

Ray thinks he could spend the rest of his life being Vecchio, just for this.

Then Holloway Muldoon comes back.

* * *

The shuttle’s escape pod nearly burns up during reentry, then they land on the planet and Ray goes from uncomfortably hot to painfully, miserably cold. He’s wheezing a little bit, trying to catch his breath, and Fraser has to yank the emergency oxygen mask from the pod before he finally stops struggling. He nearly passes out four or five times on their great trek across the ice and snow just from the lightheadedness, and the less that’s said about his brush with hypothermia, the better. It’s a good thing the cavalry shows up when they do - heh, and who’d have thought it’d be _actual_ cavalry, men and women in Mountie red streaming across the ice on horseback and dropping from the sky. When Fraser comes back with Muldoon in tow, it’s the last weight off of Ray’s shoulders.

He takes a deep inhale, holds it, and lets it go. Now that he’s not gasping for oxygen, something’s been bothering him. It feels like he’s missing - he takes in another lungful of thin, freezing air, and it hits him. He’d always thought Fraser must smell like his home planet, and he does - not even the massive kitchen freezers on the _Chicago_ come close to the weird biting scent of ice and snow and pine Fraser wears like cologne.

But Canada doesn’t smell like Fraser. It’s _too_ crisp, impersonal in a way that Fraser never is. It smells like loneliness, and Ray hasn’t been lonely since the first day he saw Fraser stride into the 2-7.

He thinks about going back to the _Chicago_ alone, slipping out of Ray Vecchio like an old suit. He thinks about Fraser staying here, swallowed up in the pale frozen wasteland. And when he thinks about it like that, the decision is easy.

(As it turns out, Fraser is very good at warming Ray up.)


End file.
